Hey who did the Concept 3? I think that background it's amazing, I want to put that background on my concept: Concept 4 (:P) http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2974/hdsswi2.jpg
I would love for the Special Stage music in the commercial's background to be used as the Special Stage music in Sonic 2 HD
...Oooook, I should be studying, but whatever, I should take 5 mins to post here xD I did that concept, It was a very basic background however... Bah, algo realista en realidad (y viendo que vas a entender esto) ... I you want it, add me at your msn, we can talk about it. here ---> [email protected]
The Saturn version was decent enough for its time, but I know from the contributions seen so far that we're capable of far better. For those of you that enjoyed the second concept, here's a few more along the same vein posted earlier in the thread: Test 2 Test 3 Test 5 Test 7
The checker pattern in test 3 is nice, but I don't like the fade to black. Maybe concept 2 + checker pattern?
Concept 1 looks really cool to me, it's got the 3D look. I think we shouldn't to it in 2D - it's closer to the original, but they did not have the technological possibilities to make it real 3D so they simulated it with 2D sprites. I think it should be rendered in 3D and then made to sprites - I guess that'd look nice. The only thing that bothers me with Concept 1 is that there's pop-up in the "horizon", but apart from that, it's perfect. Concept 2 is too flat, and 3's too ... I don't know, too simplistic. [EDIT] Test 7. Really great. The checkers add to the speedy feel of the stage. Really well done!
Oook, as nobody have mentioned my concept, should we discard it?or.. is there any suggestion about it? Well, should we do a poll to know if we will do it 2D or 3D? My opinion about 3D: It should be easier than doing it in 2D, I don't think it will be slow, I mean, if this game is made for people who uses GFX cards that support this resolution, I may work fine with 3D, I don't know, it is just my opinion...
A pre-rendered 2D version would be far more colourful and easier to do (following the original paths), but how many frames will need to be rendered to achieve a suitable HD smoothness? (without killing the ram with hundreds of huge renders) 3D would definitely solve this issue, but how will be in terms of graphical and programming required abilities? Any programmer here has ever written a 3D engine? What would be the best choice to achieve a real 3D rendered environment with 2D HD Characters on top? Which suggestions on choosing 2D/3D ? Discuss!
A 3D engine would probably be very easy to do since you don't need to ask a lot from it. If you're going with 3D though, make sure you apply a good NPR shader, like cel shading. 3D doesn't usually look as nice as 2D, to me, but cel shading makes a massive difference and I think in the case of the special stage its the way to go. As for concept 1 vs concept 2 - I think concept 1 looks too gradiented and unprofessional. It doesn't look clean enough - it look like it's straight out of a fan game, whereas concept 2 has "professional sheen" to it, and generally looks cleaner and easier on the eyes. Plus it'd be very easy to simulate that style using 3D with cel shading, because that's essentially what it is :P EDIT: As for 3D engine programming, I've only got experience with OpenGL. Since LOst is using Direct3D, I probably wouldn't be able to be much help, but I imagine the basic concepts would be similar, and as long as you abstract your rendering code from your game system, you could easily have both GL and D3D as options. It'd probably take about a week to get the rendering functionality in, another week for the cel shader, and a couple of weeks to get all the models and logic done. Doing 2D sprites over 3D would be very easy too - You'd just use a textured quad, drawn in orthogonal projection mode in front of the camera, and scale them to make them smaller when they move into the screen. You could use standard projection but the problem with that is that the Z position determines the size of the sprite. You'd use this for rings and objects if you wanted to do them as sprites, but nice 3D models would probably look better for that stuff :P
Do you think it would be possible to achieve such a colorful 3D NPR shaded environment as this mockup? Yes, if we'll take the 3D route, there is no reason to use 2D objects. (they won't look any HD at all on track turns) Ultima do you have any example of 3D program you coded?
It's very possible to create a scene like that in most professional 3D packages. The rub is in getting the distant portion of the tube not to be cut off or heavily shadowed; these two to an extent have been mutally exclusive in the concepts I've done (extending the tube to remove the 'gap' creates greater shadows at a distance). The levels themselves would pose the largest problem from an asset standpoint, as most people with basic modeling experience can create the objects in them. The characters are a bit more advanced, but the same fundamentals apply. All that said, I would greatly like to see Master Emerald's concept animated with additional frames for comparison's sake.
ok, we have different options, use DarkGDK it's a Game Development Kit, I'm not sure about using this; That someone develop a 3D engine, OR, switch JUST the special stage to OpenGL, as I was doing some tests and, OpenGL + ASE 3D format could work. In my opinion, it should be better that someone write an engine, but as I'm not able to, I just can tell the idea. EDIT: if we do it 3D: what would happen on the ending of the long tube?, it cannot be infinite, so we thought we could center those last vertexs in one point to give it the effect of infinity.
That's awesome, although I'd see if it would be possible to make the squares stand out less than they do now. They really help giving the sense of speed but... well, they weren't originally in the game. Also, I'd make the neon tubes emanate some light so the end of the tube doesn't look so dark. But I really like how it's looking. Edit: About the "infinite" ending of the tube, we could always go for a "fog effect". That's worked wonders since Superman 64 many times in the past.
But it should be some fog that wouldn't affect the background, the other day I tried to do something like that but I couldn't have done that
My vote would be fore Test7, out of the 4. I partially agree with ICEKnight though, something about the distant tubes are off. They're too dark for now, but I can't think of a better idea for implying depth, as I don't think fog would work very well either. Also, just a little nitpick, the circle at the back where the foreground tube stops and you can see the "distant tube" stationary in the background, the circle of foreground tubes 'jumps' a bit, primarily from new overhead spheres coming into view, but the tube itself does it as well, but to a lesser extent. I've included this to suggest the perhaps the overhead spheres should fade in somehow in the distance to minimize the jump/jitter effect when new spheres come into view. The fog is slowly becoming a more feasible idea with this in mind...
